USA > Alabama > History of the First Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, C.S.A. > Part 8
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The army itself of about 18,000 ragged and half-starved men with tattered banners having accomplished a long and arduous march of five hundred miles across the mountains of Georgia and Tennessee, and facing double its nunibers recalls
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vividly the shattered army of Hannibal when, after its terrible passage of the Alps, it was drawn up in line of battle before the well appointed legions of Scipio on the plains of the Ticinus.
While in this position, momentarily expecting the order to advance, Gen. Forrest, mounted on his black charger, hat in hand down by his side, his face radiant and dark eyes flashing, rode down our front. The men, already eager for the fray, caught his enthusiasm, cheered him to the echo, and began ad- vancing before the order was given. Across the ravine, on through the park, officers in front, and men still cheering, moved the army in unbroken phalanx. When about one hundred yards from the outer line we received the first volley from the enemy. The command "double quick" was given, cheers were changed to rebel yells, officers still in front, we charged the outer line. The rattle of musketry now drowned all commands of officers, and here, Capt. Dick Williams, acting Lieut .- Col. of the regi- ment, walking backwards to face the regiment as officers fre- quently do on drill, would wave his sword right and left, and then thrust it forward toward the enemy, indicating thus by acts instead of words, what he would have us do. The outer line was quickly carried, from which very few of the enemy es- caped. Here, perhaps, there was a pause of half a minute until the outer line could be swept of the enemy, and a rea- lignment made. By this time, owing to the stillness and rarity of the atmosphere, the sinoke of musketry had settled in such a dense bank over the field in front, that friend could not be distinguished from foe at a distance of a few steps. The en- emy, four lines deep behind strong entrechments, were sweep- ing the old field between us with minie balls, and a battery of siege guns to our right and beyond Big Harpeth river was tear- ing up the ground and knocking trees into fragments around it. Through a dense smoke and tempest of iron, our officers still leading, and the rebel yell still ringing, the army in per- fect order charged the inner line. Of the nature of the works of the enemy, we could have no conception until within a few feet. Dcad and wounded had fallen at every step of our ad- vance, and our ranks were badly thinned. When the number and position of the enemy stood revealed, every old Confederate saw that it was to be a fight of one to two with an enemy strongly intrenched ; but despising numbers or advantage of po- sition they leaped down into the ditch, climbed up the embank-"
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ment enveloped in a sheet of fire, and from the ramparts dis- charged their pieces in the face of the enemy, and with butts of guns closed in a hand to hand grapple with the foe. Here the intrepid Cleburne, leading his division at the head of his old brigade (Govans') fell across the breastworks with the re- puted dying words : "I am killed, but my old Arkansas brigade is glory enough for one man,"-dying words worthy of his he- roic life. Maj. Samuel L. Knox, the brave commander of the First Alabama, was lying a few steps away, having been mor- tally wounded at the head of his regiment. But of the field thickly strewn with dead and wounded, and of the almost to- tal annihilation of officers, our men engaged in a life and death struggle had neither knowledge nor thought. The enemy was brave, and had every advantage, but men have never been made so brave as to be wholly unmoved by such audacity as the Con- federates exhibited. The Federal line reeled and staggered under our heavy blows and were saved from utter route only by the most strenuous efforts of their officers. One hundred yards to our left their lines and batteries were carried. If at this crisis Johnson's division, held in reserve, had come to our assistance, the field would have been instantly won. As it was, the unequal contest on the breastworks was maintained hardly more than a minute, when our men took the ditch on the oppo- site side, and fought the enemy across the ramparts, muzzle to muzzle. The enemy soon began enfilading our lines, and after half an hour's fighting in this position, and hoping in vain for Johnson's reserve, it was plain that we must escape by flight back to our lines, or be captured or killed. Especially de- structive was the enemy's cross fire upon the Confederates in the outer ditch of the redoubt, where the embankment was too high for the men to climb. A few surrendered, but most took chances of escape, protected somewhat by the smoke and dark- ness. The position of the First Alabama was in front of the redoubt and to the left. Hood had used only two pieces of artillery in the battle, but about 8 p. m. and after the Confed- erates had fallen back, he opened a heavy cannonade on the enemy's lines, and followed it up with a charge of Johnson's division, but was repulsed with great loss. Until midnight, and long after all the attacks from the Confederates had ceased, the enemy kept up an incessant fire to the front as if Confederates were charging. It was nearly day when the en-
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emy's pickets fired their last gun, and hastened to join their comrades then retreating up the Nashville pike, beyond Big Harpeth river.
It seldom happens in any battle that the ratio of killed to wounded is so great as was in this, and the reason is plain. It being night no flag of truce could be obtained for the re- moval of the wounded. As the enemy swept the field in front until a late hour at night every wounded soldier not able to carry himself from the field, nor reached by a litter-bearer, was shot to death where he fell. Never at any time did we see a litter-bearer on the battle field at Franklin. Either none were there, or else they shirked their duty in a cowardly manner, and are responsible for so many wounded soldiers losing their lives. Many of the First Alabama were mangled beyond recognition, and could be identified only by their clothing. Sam Chappell of Co. G, a youth of 18, was an example, whose body had been pierced by seventeen minie balls. Viewed next morning by daylight, the space between the outer and inner lines to the right of the pike was heartrending. Gen. Hood is said to have wept when he beheld it. The bodies of our dead (for there were no wounded on the field the next morning) lay thicker and thicker as you go from the outer to the inner line, and in the ditches they were literally banked up three or four men deep. The immense ditch in front of the redoubt was nearly full of our dead. There were also many lying along the top of the breastworks, and some even within the enemy's lines. While the loss of men was great, that of officers was much greater, owing to their reckless exposure. Among the killed were: Maj .- Gen. Cleburne and Brig .- wens. Gist, Adams, Strahl and Granbury. Among the wounded were Maj .- Gen. Brown and Brig .- Gen. Custer, Manigault, Quarles, Cockrell and Scott.
I shall not pause to refute the absurd story that Gen. Hood next morning spoke disparagingly of the conduct of his army at the battle of Franklin. Gen. Hood was incapable either of falsehood or impropriety.
BATTLE OF NASHVILLE.
After burying our dead we took a last farewell of our loved commander, Maj. S. L. Knox, marched two miles up big Har- peth river and encamped for the night. Next morning we
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crossed the river, swung around to our left, and struck the Nashville pike four miles above Franklin.
About 9 a. m., Dec. 3, we came in view of the enemy, in- trenched on a range of hills extending across the Hillsborough and Franklin pikes, and three miles south of Nashville. The position of the Confederates on the left of the Franklin pike occupied by our ( Stewart's) corps was a valley bounded on the north, west and south by a range of high hills, and on the east by the Franklin pike, forming a rectangle one and a half miles north and south, and three-fourths of a mile east and west. Driving back the enemy's skirmishers we intrenched at the foot of the hill two hundred yards before the position of the enemy, and facing north. At the western extremity of our line we con- structed a redoubt, which our regiment occupied a few days, and then turned over to the defense of barefooted men, moving back a quarter of a mile into the valley. We all knew from the activity of railroads and steamers in Nashville that the en- emy was hourly receiving heavy reinforcements. Our men were daily occupied in strengthening our works, the weather was intensely cold, snow several inches deep covered the frozen ground, and one-third of our men without shoes, were going about with their feet wrapped with rags while the rest were poorly shod. Details were sent out every morning in the country to impress leather, and all the old shoe cobblers in the army were pegging away. Even in this extremity the citizens showed us . no substantial sympathy, but looked at us askance when we made known our mission, and told them we would pay fancy prices in Confederate money. We got no leather except what we found concealed, and which the owners let us have out of sheer respect for our muskets. Every farm-house we visited had its hogs, goats, and sheep imprisoned under the house ; while horses, mules and cows were penned up in the chimney corner. In Tennessee as in Maryland,
"We found the patriots very shy,"
and yet these people were truly loyal to the South. As previ- ously stated, most of our barefooted men were put in the re- doubt on the extreme left.
About 2 p. m., Dec. 15, 1864, the enemy fiercely attacked our extreme right, at the same time charged the center, of which our regiment was a part. Though the enemy was much supe-
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rior in position and number, every charge was promptly met and repulsed in front of our regiment. Hood seemed to think that the main attack would be made on the right and drew off several commands from center and left to support it. But the attack on the right proved a feint that deceived Hood. When Gen. Thomas saw this, he marched his heavy column, already masked opposite the redoubt, quickly drove out the barefooted men, and began descending the hill on the immediate flank and rear of our regiment. For fifteen minutes the perfomance would have been most laughable, had it not been so serious. It was laughable anyway, and we did laugh, notwithstanding Yankee bullets. The barefooted men were scattered and run- ning in every direction, except towards the enemy, not only with the agility of well shod men, but of men with springs in their shoes. Two divisions of Cheatham's corps from the right were thrown across the enemy's advance, and held him at bay until night. The behavior of these two divisions, fighting great odds in open field on level ground, and in full view of a large part of the army, won the highest admiration of all.
During the night the army fell back about a mile, and lines were reformed. Hillsborough pike had been occupied by the enemy, leaving the Franklin pike our only line of communica- tion. The position of Stewart's corps during the second day's battle extended half a mile west from the Franklin pike along a valley to the foot of the range of high hills on our left as we faced north. This range of hills, rising abruptly to a height of two hundred feet, covered with scrub timber and ledges of rock, continued its course south one-fourth of a mile, when de- flecting east nearly at right angles, extends to the Franklin pike, this last range being in rear of and parallel to our lines.
The east part of this rectangle formed by the Franklin pike on the east, our line on the north, and the range of high hills on the west and south, was a forest of large timber without undergrowth ; the western part, an open old pasture. Bates' division occupied the side and top of the hill on our left, sup- porting a battery of two small guns. The position of the reg- iment was in trenches behind a stone fence, fronting a corn- field, and about two hundred yards east of the foot of the hill. A few days of warm sunshine had melted the snow and thawed the ground, so that this now old miry cornfield thickly covered
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with large cornstalks, was a formidale obstacle to approach in our front.
About 9 a. m. the enemy opened a heavy cannonade along our whole front. Half an hour later they charged the posi- tion of our regiment with three lines of battle, and up against Bates' battery on our left. Their progress was slow and disor- derly, and for two hundred yards they were under the fire of our regiment, now armed with Enfield rifles, and their dead and wounded sprinkled well our front. They came within twenty yards of our line, and then fled, falling thicker now and faster than before. About 2 p. m. another assault was made, but also repulsed. The main attack all day had been directed mainly against the position held by Bates' division and battery on top of the hill. Our line at Bates' battery turned at right angles due south along the top of this range of hills, and the enemy seemed to regard this as the key to the situation. There had been one continuous assault on it from the beginning of the battle, but was bravely defended by a single line of Confederates. The enemy, in the meanwhile had kept extending his line south from Bates' division on top of the hill, and by 12 o'clock had reached a point where the range turns due east to the Franklin pike, and in our rear. It was plain that the enemy's object was to extend this flanking colunmn to the Franklin pike before night, and cut off our retreat. When not engaged we were interested specta- tors of this hard battle on top of the hill distinctly marked by two parallel lines of fire. About 4 p. m. and when the flanking column of the enemy on the hill was about one-fourth of a mile from the pike. Bates' position and battery, after a most heroic defense, were carried by the enemy. This occurred in full view of the First Alabama. The enemy pouring through this open- ing in our line began moving upon the left flank and rear of our regiment. At the same time we were charged by a heavy force in front. We retreated down our trenches to the right, loading and firing upon the charging force in front. We looked and hoped for reinforcements, but Hood, in fact, had none to send. The First Alabama went down the trenches one- fourth of a mile, firing as rapidly as possible until the enemy in front was hardly ten steps away. Here it was clear that we must surrender, or at great peril to our lives attempt to escape. A few chose the former; others, throwing down their guns,
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cutting off cartridge boxes and belts, but keeping canteens, hav- ersacks and blankets, sprang up from the ditch and made a dash for liberty through the park for the hill in the rear, four hundred yards distant, over which led their only way of escape. Still under fire, we climbed its side so precipitous in some places that we had to pull ourselves up by switches projecting from fissures of rock. Some were killed and wounded in this as- cent of the hill. After crossing this hill, and two or three oth- ers intersecting it on the south, we reached the Franklin pike about dark, and just as a slow rain began falling.
Nowhere else has such injustice been done the Confederate soldier as at the battle of Nashville. The facts and conditions considered, no battlefield of the South more fully illustrates his superior quality as a soldier, contending as he was with an en- emy so vastly superior in numbers, appointments and physical condition. If we analyze his conduct during these two days, we shall find nothing to censure. The flight of barefooted men made up of odds and ends of the army and under officers un- known to them, could not be considered any discredit to the army. The conduct of Cheatham's two divisions, holding in check a much larger force on the first day's battle, was most heroic. Bates' defense of his position for seven hours against overwhelming odds, and never yielding until his little band were nearly all dead or wounded in the trenches, and dead and wounded Yankees were literally piled up in his front for fifty yards, is entitled to the highest admiration. Bates did that day the hardest fighting of all, though he was at last overcome by sheer physical force. Again, after our lines were broken, the Confederates retreated in a walk down the trenches, at the same time firing as rapidly as they could at the enemy charging our front. Surely there was no evidence of panic in that. The truth is, at no time was there anything like a panic among the men. When the alternative of capture or escape had to be made, some chose the former, some the latter, but in either case the decision was made deliberately, and certainly it took some courage to attempt to escape under such circumstances. The popular impression is that a soldier never runs except when scared, but soldiers of experience know that it often requires greater bravery to run than to charge a fort. Again, we killed and wounded many times more Federals at Nashville than they did of Confederates.
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This was the last battle that the Army of Tennessee fought under Gen. Hood as commander, and it is seen that one un- broken series of disasters fully justifies the apprehension of the army when he took command. Gen. Hood was one of the bra- vest of the brave, and we do not think his proven incompetency to command the army detracts one jot from his distinguished services to his country. The same misfortune might have be- fallen any other subordinate general of the army.
RETREAT FROM TENNESSEE.
Resuming, the army, in a totally disorganized condition, tramped on all night through rain and slush down the Franklin pike. The next day the commands were practically reorgan- ized at Franklin. Four days later we reached Columbia, where we remained nearly a week. Here Forrest's cavalry, and Wal- ti all's division, to which our regiment belonged, were formed into a rear guard to cover the retreat of the army. These comri- bined aggregated only about 2,000 effective men, but success- fully resisted every advance of the enemy, several times driving them back in disorder, capturing men, guns, etc., and securing to the army a safe and orderly retreat. While at Columbia snow fell to a depth of several inches, and the pike all the way thence to Pulaski was flecked by blood of our barefooted men on the white snow. At Pulaski the army left the pike, and marched two days southwest across a hilly country. The third day we came to a creek the valley of which we descended a whole day, crossing it many times on pole bridges constructed by our pioneer corps. Leaving this, we again marched across a hilly country to Shoal creek which, swollen by the recent heavy rains to a width of two hundred yards, presented a se- rious obstacle to our advance. However, being shallow, it was passed by deep fording.
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CHAPTER VI.
CAMPAIGN IN THE CAROLINAS, 1864-1865
FIRST ALABAMA REGIMENT SENT TO NORTH CAROLINA-BATTLES OF AVERYSBORO AND BENTONVILLE.
The army recrossed the Tennessee river at Bainbridge, a few miles above Florence, Ala., Dec. 24, 1864. Reaching Corinth, the sick and barefooted were sent to hospitals, the rest of the army to join Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, who had superseded Gen. Hood and who was then opposing Sherman's march of robbery and conflagration across the Carolinas.
Our regiment had about 100 effective men and officers. Ev- erywhere along our route from Corinth to North Carolina were devastation, ruin, and crushed hopes. Still, with a sublime faith in our cause akin to inspiration, we were not at all affected by these facts, and could not entertain for a moment the thought ' that our banner would go down in defeat. This feeling in the army was not at this time fully shared by the people at home. Our regiment was detained two weeks at Augusta, Ga., until it could be recruited by the return of our sick and barefooted. We left Augusta March 2 and joined Johnston's Army March 14, 1865, and on. the 16th took part in the battle of Averysboro, in which our regiment escaped loss. On the 19th it participated in the last battle of the Army of Tennessee at Bentonville, N. C., where it formed part of the charging force that stormed the Federal lines and drove them in confusion half a mile. In this last battle several of the regiment were killed and wounded, among the former being Lieut. Williamson of Co. C, (Guards of the Sunny South.)
Thus the glorious "Old First," that had been the first to take up arms in defense of their rights and homes, left some of its best life's blood on its last battlefield, having nowhere at any time ever failed of its duty, and having received special men-
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tion for commendable conduct in the official report of every commander under whom it had served-an imperishable honor to every one of its members, and to their descendants forever.
While on one point I cannot speak authoritatively for other companies of the regiment, I may be permitted to speak of my own ( Perote Guards), and from this the reader may judge the others. A muster roll of the company recently compiled ( 1902) by the survivors, shows 197 men. Not one of these ever de- serted, put a substitute in his place, or attempted to evade the Confederate service by exemption laws, or by any other means. All except the few that lived to return home, are on the battle- fields and in the Confederate cemeteries of the North. And this, too, when most members of the company were sons of per- sons of ample means, who could have easily secured their free- dom from service.
FINAL SURRENDER OF ARMY.
On April 27, 1865, the regiment was surrendered by John- ston to Sherman at Greensboro, N. C., paroled, and the men immediately set out for their respective homes, which some did not reach until July.
How this same Confederate soldier, returning with blasted hopes to homes of destitution and desolation, and despite car- petbag rule for ten years, lifted our Southland from the ashes of despair and placed it on the high road to prosperity and hap- piness, forms another and more heroic chapter in the history of his achievements.
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CHAPTER VII.
REMINISCENCES AND INCIDENTS.
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The narrative history of the regiment having been completed, I now propose to indulge in a chapter of reminiscences and in- cidents. These, it is hoped, will prove interesting in themselves, and worthy of permanent preservation, although not forming a part of the regimental history proper.
TWO ARKANSANS OUTGENERALED.
While a Red river steamer was discharging its cargo of ba- con at the landing, private I. H. Johnson of the Perote Guards, . was sitting upon the bluff overlooking the landing, an inter- ested spectator of the scene below. The mysterious move- ments of two Arkansas soldiers mixing with the boat hands at work especially excited his curiosity. He kept his eye on them. Sure enough the first opportunity that opened, when the backs of the boat hands were turned, they grabbed each a side of ba- con and ran off. An idea struck Johnson. His camp was not a hundred yards away while that of the Arkansas men was half a mile distant with a skirt of forest intervening. Johnson rushed to his camp, quickly donned a sergeant's coat, picked up a file of men and dashed off around the skirt of woods in his "flank movement." He intercepted and arrested the Ar- kansans, started to camp with prisoners and spoils, but soon halted for a parley. Our pro tem sergeant expressed deep sympathy to and for his prisoners, saying that he knew rations were short; that he thought it hard, under the circumstances, for soldiers to be court-martialed, and probably balled and chained for a month merely for trying to get something to eat ; and then intimated that if he could do so with safety to himself he would turn them loose, but that he would be obliged to carry the bacon to camp and make his report. The Arkansans
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eagerly accepted this proposition, and in less than half an hour "our sergeant" came marching back to camp, each of his men with a side of bacon and cheered by the whole company. I can't say whether or not our "sergeant" ever reported this haul to headquarters, but it has always been our private opinion that Lee's veterans never got any of that meat.
BEEF HEADS.
As our allowance of beef became more and more stinted, the men would occasionally supplement with a beef-head from the slaughter pen, half a mile distant. These beef-heads cost noth- ing, except to go and get them, and when properly prepared and well cooked, made, as we then thought, a most delicious dish. Each member of the mess would take his turn in going for a head. My turn came, and I went. Then I wished I had never seen the place. The slaughter pen stood at the head of a rav- ine whose walls were steep and twenty feet high. Into this great trough the offal, filth, and such beef-heads as had not been given away, had been "dumped" for many months. It was a loathsome, sickening sight, covering about a fourth of an acre, standing four or five deep in the lob-lolly about the consistency of mud, with beef-heads floating about at random and in vari- ous degrees of submergence, some just thrown in and on top of the surface, some buried to the roof of the horns, some with half the horns, others with barely the tips of the horns projecting above this vast slough of slime, the whole in a seething ferment with worms, each working as energetically as a Yankee trying to drive a trade. It was here, according to Col. Steedman, that a picked body of Federals tried to "sneak through our lines" on a stormy night during the siege; and it was this place that he describes by the undignified, though not inexpressive term, of "putrid mess."
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